Win or lose, Ozzie bellies up to the hotel bar afterward

CINCINNATI -- So how does Ozzie Guillen spend his free time after games when the team's on the road? Here's how he answered that question when I posed it to him before Thursday's game against the Reds:

"What do I do? What I do when I go anywhere, stay in the hotel bar, get drunk and go to sleep. I don't do anything out in New York. I don't do anything out in Cleveland. I've got my routine. I’ve got my batting practice routine. Game’s over, stay in the lobby of the hotel, the hotel bar, get drunk and go to sleep. I get drunk because I’m happy because we won or get drunk because I’m very sad and disturbed because we lose. Same routine. We do the same routine for 25, 28 years. It hasn’t changed. I don’t like to go out.”

“How many years have I been going to New York and I never saw the (Twin) Towers in my life. When I go to work, it’s go to work. Hotel, ballpark, ballpark, hotel, sushi place. Golf in the morning. That’s it.”

“I don’t have time. I have to be here early, and I go to sleep so drunk I have to recover until 11 o’clock. Why do I have to lie? People have to celebrate. I never get in trouble. You see that? I’m never going to leave the hotel. Nobody can call my wife and see we saw Ozzie in this bar or this place.”

“I lived in Miami for 12 years and I only went to South Beach three times in my life. I don’t like to go out. People think I like to go out. People think as soon as the game’s over I take my clothes off and say 'Where’s the best bar?' I don’t like that. I just want to relax. I’d rather be in my house with my wife, be on my boat. Even Chicago, not too many people see me out, and I live there. I walk my dog. I have a bar across the street from me. Sit at the bar for a couple of beers and come back.”

“That’s why I never get in trouble. I get in trouble, I get drunk and somebody talk (expletive) to me it’s a fight. That’s why I prevent that. I’m too little to fight. If I had Stanton’s size, I’d be looking for fights, but I can’t. I might get killed.”

With Ozzie, I'm not sure how much to believe. I haven't been around him enough to know. My best hunch is that, like a lot of major league managers, coaches and players, he has a few drinks after games at the team hotel and goes to bed. As it turned out, I spotted him leaving a downtown restaurant -- one that's connected to the team hotel -- a few hours after the Marlins' loss yesterday. He was with his wife and family. looking sharp in a suit. He did not appear drunk.